


Crossing the Threshold

by Cybra



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Gen, past emotional abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 14:43:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17205335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cybra/pseuds/Cybra
Summary: A belated Christmas gift forSinclaironfirebased on their storyGirl Friday.Gandra goes to meet with her father for what will likely be the last time and pack what's left of her things.  In doing so, she comes to a series of realizations about her old life, things she needed to acknowledge before she could embrace her new one.





	Crossing the Threshold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sinclaironfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sinclaironfire/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Girl Friday](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14608125) by [Sinclaironfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sinclaironfire/pseuds/Sinclaironfire). 



> I originally wrote something else as my Christmas gift to Sinclaironfire, but no matter how much I tweaked and edited, it was just _bad._ So I scrapped it and wrote this instead, which is based on what we’d chatted about and what’s already been seen in Sinclaironfire’s fic "Girl Friday". Merry belated Christmas! At least I got it out before the new year.
> 
> **Disclaimer:** _Ducktales_ belongs to the Walt Disney Company.

Gandra entered the front door, Scrooge a step behind her with a copy of the paperwork that had been signed in the presence of a lawyer in triplicate.  She had thought it excessive, but—judging by the expression on her father’s face when she walked in—she was glad the old man had insisted.

_“If there’s only one thing I know, it’s that it’s best to have all the I’s dotted and T’s crossed in as legally-binding a contract as you can possibly make with witnesses to prove you didn’t force someone to sign under duress and have multiple copies to boot,”_ he’d told her when they began drafting the proposal to her father. _“I’ve been burned one too many times by people following the letter, not the spirit, of a contract and a verbal agreement can’t be used in a court of law when the other side decides to be petty and violates it.”_

“I’m here for my things,” she said, her stomach roiling with nervousness, her hand gripping the handle of the suitcase she’d brought with her tightly.

Her father scowled at her before tilting his head to glance behind her.  “Couldn’t bring yourself to come back without a guard dog, could you?  You’ll never make it on your own if you have to keep hiding behind someone else.”

The old man behind her didn’t move, but she could feel his eyes on her, watching her.  However, there wasn’t any judgment in that gaze.  He was letting her handle things as best she could just as he’d promised.

_“This is your show.  I’d just be there to be the bigger bully when he gets out of line.”_

_“I don’t think it’ll come to that.”_

_“Nonetheless, I’d like to be there to make sure it won’t if you’ll let me.”_

“I’m not hiding, Dad,” she told him firmly even as her knees threatened to turn to jelly. “If I wanted to hide, I would’ve just sent over the movers for my stuff without stopping by.”  She swallowed.  “I was hoping maybe we could at least leave on good terms with each other?”

She hadn’t meant for the last sentence to come out as a question.  She could see in his eye that he’d picked up on a potential weakness in her resolve and had started calculating how to use it.

Had he always gotten that look when she’d tried to stand up for herself in the past?  It was such a small, subtle thing, but it was a look she’d grown familiar with on strangers’ faces who’d come to meet with her employer in the hopes of prying his fingers loose from his wallet.

She could remember asking Scrooge about it and flushing at the pride in his voice as he’d told her that she had quite a knack for reading people, a skill she’d likely subconsciously learned during her waitressing days and meeting all sorts from all walks of life.  It had come in handy over the past few weeks of her job as she notes in business meetings and grew more and more confident sharing her observations of the “opposition” with Scrooge after each one.  He listened to her input even if he would periodically dismiss something based on one experience or another in the past.  (She usually had to wait a good ten minutes for him to finish “story time” for these instances, but she gleaned a little more insight into her employer from each so she could better understand what he was looking for.)  She wasn’t a scientist like Gyro or Fenton, a warrior like Beakley or her granddaughter, or even a pilot like Launchpad, but she could _read_ people and was getting better at it all the time, and that was a skill that was incredibly valuable to the man who’d offered her a coveted position in the most exclusive office building in the country if not the world.

Yet as she saw the wheels in her father’s head turning, she was momentarily struck dumb at the realization that she likely _had_ noticed this before but had pushed it out of her mind.  She’d always tried to be a “good girl” and do what he (and _he_ ) wanted her to do.  They had had her best interests in mind.  They’d been looking out for her.  Or at least she’d convinced herself of that.

She almost missed that naivete. _Almost._

“I think we’d be on better terms if you stayed,” her father told her gruffly. “You being out of the apartment put a few things in perspective.”

The Gandra of a month ago would’ve cried and relented, hugging her father and wanting nothing more to be back in his (and _his_ ) good graces.  They cared about her; they were just bad at showing it.

The Gandra of now teared up a bit, but she didn’t break down.  She took a moment for a steadying breath just as Beakley had taught her, steeling herself, before she responded with “I think it did, too, but not the way you’re hoping.”

After the breakup with _him,_ she’d crashed at McDuck Manor for about two weeks, living with Launchpad until Scrooge had found out and insisted on her taking one of the dozens of guest rooms sitting empty.  He’d charged her “rent” in the form of assisting Beakley as needed along with helping with anything that attempted to invade the house.  It had been a strange sort of “halfway house” situation where she’d been transitioning from being under her father’s and _his_ thumb to being more independent.  She was already looking into finding her own apartment or maybe a little house in the suburbs…though admittedly just carpooling to work with Scrooge was very convenient and saved her a lot on gas money.  Plus she’d already gotten used to the idea of home cooked meals every day regardless of the time as opposed to something from a can or a fast food bag when Scrooge (and by extension she) worked late.  (As blasphemous as it was, she had to admit that Beakley’s cooking put what little she remembered of her mother’s to shame.)

“So you’re dead set on leaving.”

“But I’d like to visit sometimes if you’d let me,” she said honestly.

She didn’t want it to be a farewell.  Like him or hate him, this man was her father and he _had_ been the one to raise her after her mother died.  She remembered him being happier, gentler before that had happened, but the cynic in her head that sounded suspiciously like Gyro noted that that might not necessarily be true:  He had her mother to bully back then, too, so she might not remember him being like this because she hadn’t been the sole recipient of it all.

His eyes were flinty as he frowned at her.  “After everything I’ve sacrificed for you, you ungrateful—"

“Mr. Dee, we’re on a tight schedule,” Scrooge said in a clipped tone, the old man suddenly standing beside her. “I’m a very busy man, and I need my secretary to help me get a lot of it done.  Time is money, and petty insults wastes both.  If you’ve got nothing constructive to say, I’d strongly suggest you step aside and let her finish her part of the bargain.”

Scrooge’s sudden appearance allowed her to realize that while she hadn’t moved during the entire conversation, her father had gone from almost halfway across the living room to within arm’s reach of her.

Her father looked over at Scrooge, involuntarily taking a step back.  “This is family business, McDuck.”

“It’s also _my_ business as _your landlord_ given this is to finalize the changes on the rental agreement,” Scrooge retorted sharply. “Now, _if you would be so kind…”_

Despite the polite words, the tone brooked no argument.

Her father, despite being almost twice as tall as Scrooge, took another step back before finally moving aside.

Scrooge nodded his approval before looking at her.  “Miss Dee.”

She glanced at her father before nodding and walking to her bedroom door.  There were pieces of tape over the crack in the door that Scrooge had had her sign her initials on after the door had been “sealed”.  She took the Polaroids he offered her from the folder he carried containing the contract, comparing the tape as it was to how it had looked when she’d first signed it.  Only once she’d confirmed that the tape appeared unaltered did he hand her a pen knife to cut the tape and open the door.  (Per the contractual agreement, her father wouldn’t be charged if the door and its frame had to be repainted when the tape was pulled off.  Same with the paint on the inside of the window where more tape “seals” ensured nobody had snuck in to take anything.)

When she’d last left this room, she’d packed up the box of things from her mother along with a few necessities.  Now she pawed through what few belongings she had left, picking out what she couldn’t live without or bear to part with and placing them in the suitcase.  When she had gone over the room three times to ensure she hadn’t missed anything, she was surprised that—despite not leaving much behind—the bag was only two-thirds full.

“That’s it,” she said.

“Anything you leave behind defaults to him,” Scrooge reminded her, eying her father with distaste.

“I know, but I have everything I want.”

He nodded his understanding as she zipped up the suitcase and started rolling it behind her, her casting one last glance back at the bedroom that had been hers for so many years.  It looked so tiny now.  And barren even though she hadn’t done much decorating in the first place.

“Now then, Miss Dee has already pre-paid your next three months rent as agreed,” Scrooge said, all business. “From here on out, you’re responsible for all payments regarding rent and damage to the apartment save what damage removing the tape from the door and window might cause.”  He held out his hand to Gandra.  “The key?”

She retrieved the front door key from her pocket, her having removed it from her keychain on the drive over.  Rather than handing it over to Scrooge, she held it out to her father.

The man glowered at the both of them before snatching up the little piece of metal, and Gandra felt the sudden urge to apologize and call the whole thing off.

However, she held her ground.  “Goodbye, Dad,” she told him instead.

He turned his back on her.

Gandra sighed but turned to the front door, focusing only on placing one foot in front of the other.  Her feet dragged slightly but they obeyed her commands well enough otherwise.  She opened the door and paused.

She looked back over her shoulder again, taking in the apartment that had been her home for most of her life.  She remembered so many years of struggling to pay the bills and make things acceptable to the two men in her life.  More importantly, she remembered helping her mother clean the small space, the two of them playacting silly games like “Cinderella finishing her chores before the ball” to help things go faster.

It was in that moment that she realized that she _wasn’t_ leaving her home behind, not really.  This place had stopped being home when her mother had died.

It was time to go.

She turned her gaze back forward and stepped across the threshold for the last time.  She would not be coming back here in the foreseeable future, perhaps never if her father refused to stay in contact with her.  Her vision blurred with each step towards the limo, but she kept her head held high the whole time as Launchpad took her suitcase and packed it up into the trunk.  She slid into the seat, Scrooge right behind her.

Launchpad shut the door for them before he climbed into the driver’s seat and they started off towards McDuck Manor, leaving Gandra’s past behind her.


End file.
